Battle Reform: Enmity (07/06/2011)

[Kafeen]

New enmity changes are detailed on : http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...b8f966e40a8058

Patch 1.18 is scheduled to usher in large-scale changes to enmity calculation, which will be accompanied by the introduction of a new UI element displaying enemy enmity.

Changes to Enmity Calculation
Enmity is the element of the game that governs the target of an enemy’s hostility. Performing certain actions increases an enemy’s enmity towards you; the enemy will attempt to attack the player or NPC who has generated the highest amount of enmity. Skillful control of enmity forms the cornerstone of effective partying.

The current method of enmity calculation has been deemed excessively complicated, rendering the employment of battle strategies problematic. This was made worse by having no way of checking the constantly changing enmity values. Patch 1.18 will see the simplification of the enmity system to one based on accumulated actions. Furthermore, a new UI element will be introduced that allows players to see their foes’ enmity levels at all times, making enmity control a far more tangible affair.


Relationship Between Actions and Enmity
Actions that generate enmity can be divided into two main categories: direct and indirect. The former refers to actions that inflict damage or enfeebling status effects upon a foe, while the latter encompasses those that heal or fortify an ally. Different actions will increase enmity to varying extents, with the strength of the delivery (such as damage dealt or HP restored) also playing a part in the calculation. Enmity will be reset for players who are KO’d or otherwise incapacitated from battle for a certain period of time.


Making Enmity Visible
In order to allow enmity control to be readily incorporated into battle strategy, an icon will be implemented which displays an enemy's enmity. This icon will appear to the left of the enemy’s HP gauge, and through a color scheme will inform players of their foe’s enmity level and behavior.

No icon The enemy is not taking action against you.
Green, orange, or red icon The enemy is taking action against you. Enmity level is indicated from low to high in the order of green, orange, and red, indicating a progressively greater likelihood that the enemy will target you.
Blinking red icon You are incurring the highest level of enmity among targets engaging the enemy and are being targeted.
Improvements to the enmity system are scheduled to continue in patch 1.19 and beyond. Abilities that affect enmity will also be subject to adjustments.

[Seif]

Hmm, on the other hand I like that they're addressing this.

Enemity is hard to get a feel of because the spell effects are scaled up to the heavens and you're usually attacked by o herd of popcorn mobs.

In XI such bars weren't needed because the battle was paced so you got a "feel" of your enmity from playing experience and it was easy to see the mobs next target based on it's movement.

Anyway I can't wait to see how this works in the actual game. Dates SE?

I'm not a casual player I play for short amounts of time but I like my games with depth.
Maybe this feature is directed towards the casual players? Which of you casual players rather look at gauges than on-screen action? I'd like to hear your opinion on this.

[Carmillia]

Hmm, on the other hand I like that they're addressing this.

Enemity is hard to get a feel of because the spell effects are scaled up to the heavens and you're usually attacked by o herd of popcorn mobs.

In XI such bars weren't needed because the battle was paced so you got a "feel" of your enmity from playing experience and it was easy to see the mobs next target based on it's movement.

Anyway I can't wait to see how this works in the actual game. Dates SE?

I'm not a casual player I play for short amounts of time but I like my games with depth.
Maybe this feature is directed towards the casual players? Which of you casual players rather look at gauges than on-screen action? I'd like to hear your opinion on this.

I am casual gamer and this is definitely not something I like to see. At this point, it's more about people who don't have the strength to THINK about their actions and just want to have things told to them. So far, I don't really appreciate the 'easy mode' the game is moving towards and I wouldn't be surprised if the dungeons are like a walk in a park rather than a CoP-like level of challenge.. Wait and see...

[Zanfire]

kind of pointless to me, almost like they need to tell you everything at this point, its exact level, if it agros, and now how much agro you have. Emenity in FFXI was just obvious, any halfway decent player understood how it worked and didnt need things like this.

[syntaxlies]

kind of pointless to me, almost like they need to tell you everything at this point, its exact level, if it agros, and now how much agro you have. Emenity in FFXI was just obvious, any halfway decent player understood how it worked and didnt need things like this.

The actual icon may be a bit much ill decide if i like it after a try it, but the hate system did need to be reworked. Glads have barely any hate control skills, and the ones they have have massive stamina requirements and after you use them half the time the mob wont even look at you. Some people will say well you need to get hate control skills from other classes, well you shouldn't have to(although i do and they dont work as well on another class)

[Crica]

kind of pointless to me, almost like they need to tell you everything at this point, its exact level, if it agros, and now how much agro you have. Emenity in FFXI was just obvious, any halfway decent player understood how it worked and didnt need things like this.

This design is catered toward the lowest common denominator of the general public in order to get more subscriptions (which is GOOD business sense).

It will most likely be a toggle, so that those who are capable/prefer, will be able to have more of a challenge - and those are are not capable/do not prefer will have a easier time understanding their enmity levels at all times.

Easy game design mechanics are not placed in games to ensure players like you have no fun, but to ensure even the youngest/simplest minds can have fun along with players like you - IE: More subscriptions.

Just ask SE for a toggle, and then you will retain your "personal" game challenge.

[Cueball]

kind of pointless to me, almost like they need to tell you everything at this point, its exact level, if it agros, and now how much agro you have. Emenity in FFXI was just obvious, any halfway decent player understood how it worked and didnt need things like this.

I agree with the fact that now were being shown what our emenity is doesn't allow the players to really understand how to controll their emenity. Were being given threat meters because more players now days like having this kinda of gauge. I personally would enjoy the game more if I had to learn on my own what the threshold is of pulling hate or not.

[Perrin_Aybarra]

I agree with the fact that now were being shown what our emenity is doesn't allow the players to really understand how to controll their emenity. Were being given threat meters because more players now days like having this kinda of gauge. I personally would enjoy the game more if I had to learn on my own what the threshold is of pulling hate or not.

Which without a meter you would NEVER be able to guess regardless of your l33tness. You cannot know how close you are of pulling aggro without meter for one reason: you cannot compare yourself to the tank. Without a meter you would never be able to know how much hold the tank has on a boss (mob) even if you were the best player that has ever existed.

So saying you would prefer guess what the threshold of pulling hate would be, is really just not understanding the basic of it. You could never play at 100% of what your class could pull of since you wouldn't be able to judge at X time where you stand compared to the tank. You would not be able to guess it unless you spend your time reading the combat log to see what the tank does, which would still impair your skill.

And I can even push it saying that no meter makes the game easier in a way. Being a DD you could just stay safe and go about using your abilities slowly so you don't pull hate (since you are just guessing you never know how far from it you actually are). With the meter, you have only your stupidity as an excuse for not playing your class right and doing as much dmg as you can without pulling hate. So the meter seperates the bad players from the good players who can read an analyze an enmity meter.

It's much easier to not have a meter and play safe than having a meter and pushing yourself to the limit.

[Cueball]

Which without a meter you would NEVER be able to guess regardless of your l33tness. You cannot know how close you are of pulling aggro without meter for one reason: you cannot compare yourself to the tank. Without a meter you would never be able to know how much hold the tank has on a boss (mob) even if you were the best player that has ever existed.

So saying you would prefer guess what the threshold of pulling hate would be, is really just not understanding the basic of it. You could never play at 100% of what your class could pull of since you wouldn't be able to judge at X time where you stand compared to the tank. You would not be able to guess it unless you spend your time reading the combat log to see what the tank does, which would still impair your skill.

And I can even push it saying that no meter makes the game easier in a way. Being a DD you could just stay safe and go about using your abilities slowly so you don't pull hate (since you are just guessing you never know how far from it you actually are). With the meter, you have only your stupidity as an excuse for not playing your class right and doing as much dmg as you can without pulling hate. So the meter seperates the bad players from the good players who can read an analyze an enmity meter.

It's much easier to not have a meter and play safe than having a meter and pushing yourself to the limit.

Having a icon telling you when your going to pull hate only allows you to spam abilities until your about to pull hate, then simply maintain this amount of emenity. This doesn't seem very fun to me, IMO.

If you don't have any way of knowing what your emenity is IMO you must play with more awareness and know your class and understand how much emenity your skills are producing and thus use your experience to judge where the threshold is. This is how to separate the good players from the bad or inexperienced. This then presents an opportunity to help those players and also builds possible friendships. ^.^v

[kukurumei]

Which without a meter you would NEVER be able to guess regardless of your l33tness. You cannot know how close you are of pulling aggro without meter for one reason: you cannot compare yourself to the tank. Without a meter you would never be able to know how much hold the tank has on a boss (mob) even if you were the best player that has ever existed.

So saying you would prefer guess what the threshold of pulling hate would be, is really just not understanding the basic of it. You could never play at 100% of what your class could pull of since you wouldn't be able to judge at X time where you stand compared to the tank. You would not be able to guess it unless you spend your time reading the combat log to see what the tank does, which would still impair your skill.

And I can even push it saying that no meter makes the game easier in a way. Being a DD you could just stay safe and go about using your abilities slowly so you don't pull hate (since you are just guessing you never know how far from it you actually are). With the meter, you have only your stupidity as an excuse for not playing your class right and doing as much dmg as you can without pulling hate. So the meter seperates the bad players from the good players who can read an analyze an enmity meter.

It's much easier to not have a meter and play safe than having a meter and pushing yourself to the limit.

No the meter makes it easier, it's the devs that have to go in and spend massive effort to raise the bar.

Why do you think it's call tank and spank? Because there is no mistake when there's a pretty little bar that tells-assist you to never make that mistake.

Thus the developers knowing that you will not make that mistake have to smoke and mirror gimmick you lose in different fashion.

And why you may even naively think "well that's great, make devs work harder". No it's not, because that's like saying "build walls higher" or "make armor thicker". It's more resources with little extra reward, and in terms of the very limited resources of FF14. a 1-3 month content rotation turns into a 3-6 month content rotation.

That's why gimmicks are dangerous, you can't keep reusing it, and you can't just keep thinking great new ones.

It's a developer problem, that will eventually fall back to a player problem.

And since this isn't anything new I can tell you already about 2/3 rds of the gimmicks they will be using. It gets pretty obvious and boring after a while. There are just so many ways to trick enmity meters, that's been discovered to be "fun".

Sadly, I'm not betting on FF14 developers be the good at creative content given their history, which is why I have no idea why they have something so obstructive as a hate meter.

Do you want to play quiz shows with people that can google infront of them...no way. Half your questions are worthless.